


All We Got, We Had From The Start

by DragonGirl12



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst With A Bittersweet Ending, Gen, Grief, Nick Fury Needs A Hug, Post-Endgame, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonGirl12/pseuds/DragonGirl12
Summary: In Nick Fury’s long career, grief is something he’s had to become firmly accustomed to. He is a spy, after all, and an agent. He spent a good portion of his life running the world’s leading intelligence agency. Grief is a part of the job. People go into the field, and sometimes they don’t come back. It's just life. You stop. You say goodbye. And you move on.But there is grief.And then there is this.





	All We Got, We Had From The Start

 

                In Nick Fury’s long career, grief is something he’s had to become firmly accustomed to. He is a spy, after all, and an agent. He spent a good portion of his life running the world’s leading intelligence agency. Grief is a part of the job. People go into the field, and sometimes they don’t come back. It's just life. You stop. You say goodbye. And you move on.

                But there is grief.

                And then there is _this._

                Tony Stark. Billionaire, playboy (though not so much anymore, thanks to Pepper), and philanthropist. Absolutely brilliant, and possibly the biggest pain in the ass to ever exist.

                Also, the stupid, inane, _selfless_ man who’d saved them all from Thanos. And died doing it.

                Agent Romanoff. Natasha. The Black Widow herself. The agent he’d doubted intensely and watched warily, and eventually grown to respect. The woman who’d risen from the ashes of her past life and done everything in her power to balance the red in her ledger.

                Nick Fury hopes that wherever she is, she knows that she finally succeeded.

                There are funerals. Endless remembrances. The crowds, the processions, the banners across the cities. He can’t walk through the streets without seeing them. Without being reminded of how they’d won. What they’d lost.

                He’s known grief. He’s known sorrow.

                This isn’t grief. This isn’t sorrow.

                This is devastation.

                That cold, hollow pit at the bottom of his stomach. That creeping feeling of emptiness, of loss, when he walks to the grocery store and sees the posters. The signs, the banners, the _reminders._ The realization, standing in the Avengers’ conference room, that there are two chairs left empty. That, even when they are filled again, it won’t be by the people they’d been meant for.

                Months passed, and it is still there. Lurking at the bottom of his conscious. Refusing to leave, to sleep. Because he’d done this. Indirectly, he’d done this. He’d brought the Avengers together; he’d drafted the first papers that had made the team a reality. And they’d done exactly what he’d hoped they would. They’d saved the world. Again. And again. And again.

                _But at what cost?_

Because of him, because of the pieces he’d set in motion, because of the plans he’d laid, the world had been saved. Millions of people are alive.

Because of him, Tony and Natasha are gone.

                The man who’d strolled into a room full of politicians ready castigate him, and announced _“I am Iron Man”_ for the world. The cocky, arrogant inventor, who’d once mocked him from the top of a giant donut, all the while dying from internal poisoning, and then saved the world three weeks later.

               The fearless, cunning woman who’d prevented HYDRA’s rise, exposed her secrets to the public, and then had the nerve to verbally flip off Congress at the top of Capitol Hill. The Avenger who’d survived the fall of the world, then picked herself up and led her broken team of heroes into the next dawn.

               Both of them, gone. Both of them, sacrificed for a future, a family, that they will never get to see again.

               Days pass, sleepless. The sun rises, again and again and again. People walk the streets, talking and laughing, going about their lives.

               Their lives, bought with the blood of two others. They know it. And they still find the strength to laugh. Cry. Smile. Hope.

               Weeks passed, and he watches.  Seasons change. The days grow shorter and longer and shorter again.

               The banners still fly.

               And then it happens.

               He wakes up (gets out of bed, anyways, from another sleepless night), and they are gone.

               The posters, the banners. The slogans and messages bearing the names of the fallen heroes. Rain has torn them. Weather has beaten them away.

               It has happened before.

               This time though, this time, they are not rehung.

               And he knows that the time for grief is over.

               For the first time in days, he leaves his dark, thin-walled apartment. For the first time in days, he lets the sun fall again on his face. He walks. Talks. Meaningless, momentary conversations, casual greetings to the people on the street.

_It’s still there._

_Grief won’t be rid so easily this time._

               He finds jobs. Mindless, simple work for someone like him. He breaks through criminal underworlds, stops terrorist plots, and eats regular lunches with the biggest power players in the world.

_It never goes away._

               He saves the world, several times over. Indirectly, behind the scenes, once from the front lines.

_Guilt never leaves. Grief never stops._

               But he does.

               Eventually.

               He stops. Disappears. Goes completely off the radar.

               The Avengers don’t need him anymore. They are already venturing off into a new era of their own, aided by Wakanda and the intergalactic efforts of Carol Danvers and the Guardians of the Galaxy. SHIELD doesn’t need him anymore-it hadn’t for a good, long while.

               The world is at peace. Tentative, careful peace, but-peace.

                He isn’t.

                He still sees their faces. Still hears their voices.

                He ends up on a rooftop in New York City, sometime in mid-November. Building rise around him, the map of cars and streets and people splayed below. He sits on the edge, legs dangling over into free air. The smell of some street vendor cooking wafts up, curling in the cool winter air. In the distance, the shoreline glitters, rendered golden by the setting sun.

                This is the world they fought to protect. This is the world Tony and Natasha lived and died for.

                He hadn’t moved on, and he knows this. Knows he should get up and get on with his life.

                But how can he? How can he, when _they_ are not here? How can he, when _they_ are not given the same opportunity?

                He stares at the sun until it drifts below the horizon. Far above him, obscured by the thousands of twinkling city lights below, stars break into the sky.

                He wonders if they are watching.

                He wonders if Tony and Natasha are up there with the stars too, gazing down on the world they strove to protect.

                He hopes they are.

                And he realizes, on top of everything, that they have given him one more gift.

                _Hope._

They have given him a reason-and the strength-to hope.

                He sits on the rooftop for the rest of the night, and stares out at the sleepless city until the sun rises again, spilling its light over streets and pavement and people.

                _Goodbye, Natasha. Goodbye, Tony._

                Dawn breaks.

                The world moves on.

                This time, he moves with it.

**Author's Note:**

> To readers,  
> Thank you so much for reading! This is my first venture into the world of writing fanfiction, and I was really excited to get this posted. The story was kind of a random plot bunny that appeared in my head one day, and I'm still not convinced it turned out all that good (but practice makes perfect, right?). If anyone has any constructive criticism or comments, they would be incredibly welcome!  
> Thank you again for taking the time to read this! Please leave a comment below, tell me what you thought!
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel (if they were mine, I'm pretty sure they'd hate me by now).


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